Digitimes Research: Notebook shipments suffer over 10% drop in December

Joanne Chien, DIGITIMES Research, Taipei [Thursday 2 January 2014]

The global top-five notebook brand vendors and top-three ODMs, after enjoying on-month shipment growths in November, suffered on-month drops of 12% and 11% in December, respectively, better than Digitimes Research's original expectations due to extended orders from both the enterprise and consumer markets, and orders that shifted forward for production in December because of the Lunar New Year holidays.

Among first-tier brand vendors, Toshiba and Dell had better performances than the rest in December with Toshiba even enjoying a shipment growth higher than that of November. Dell's shipment growth was mainly contributed by the replacement trend created by Microsoft ending support for Windows XP and the recovery of enterprise notebook demand in the US and Europe, Digitimes Research's figures showed.

Meanwhile, education notebook orders from India and year-end holiday sales helped Hewlett-Packard (HP) achieve an on-month decline of only 15% for December, allowing the company to maintain its notebook shipments at above eight million units in the fourth quarter.

As for the ODMs, Quanta Computer and Inventec, the major suppliers of HP, both saw over 10% on-month shipment drops in December, while the other ODMs only suffered single-digit percentage decreases.

Although Acer's new CEO may not immediately resolve the company's issues, it still shows the company's ambition. Dell, which privatized itself in October 2013, hosted Dell World 2013 in December, displaying its latest product lineups and strategies, and is expected to become more aggressive over the enterprise market in the future.